Ba Ba Black Sheep

I was a little worried about teaching the children that it was okay to draw on a specific item of furniture when we implemented the chalk board table.  When we were shopping for chalk board spray paint Chris was excited that they also sold whiteboard spray paint and for a moment suggested that we run with that instead.  It didn't take me long to convince him why arming two year olds with magic markers wasn't the best idea. 

So far our new drawing centre has been successful, with some exceptions. Below are the things that Jack finds most exciting and we find most horrifying about the drawing centre:

1. Did you know that chalk makes a great noise when you throw it on the floor?  Added bonus, it breaks giving you more pieces of chalk!
2. You also get an explosive reaction when you throw it at your sister.
3. Chalk is a tasty between meal snack.
4. For experiment sake, what do you think would happen happen if you shoved a piece of chalk into an electrical outlet?
5. Anything black must be a chalk board, including the front door.

When Chris came home from work the other day he asked me why there was a giant pink chalk mark on our front door.  I pointed to the boy. Chris said that he thought that there may be some biblical symbolism about marking the front door of the house and the oldest child.

We debated, we researched and we deliberated.  Chris was thinking of the Passover story where the family roasts, consumes a lamb and collects the blood in a bowl as a sacrifice to substitute for the first born child.  The family then paints the front door with the lamb's blood to notify the Angel (of death) to passover their house and move onto the next, thus leaving the eldest child safe.*

 As a former undergrad who focused her studies in literature, including biblical reference analysis, I think this comparison is a little weak.**   Jack is either 6 months early or 6 months late for passover. Perhaps the 6 months could be seen as an homage or a threat to the eldest child, his sister?  Second, Jack has no access to sheep blood, but besides pouring cranberry juice on the door, which would be truer in colour, the pink chalk is the best representation available.  No one in our family would likely notice cranberry juice poured on the door until our front hallway was filled with colonies of aunts (aka locusts), exactly the opposite of Passover in my crude interpretation.  His obsessive singing of Ba Ba Black Sheep seems a little more ominous when you place it within the context of the above analysis. 

Final assessment -  no biblical symbolism going on here, just a toddler thinking that any furniture type objects that are black make excellent writing surfaces.  Thankfully our front door and the contents of our fridge are now "safe" from the angel of death.


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*I apologize for the "Bible Stories for Beginners" gloss over approach, but you get the gist.
**Although not so unfounded that I'm unwilling to write about it and examine it as if I was in Bible Studies and Literature Today all over again.